


Distraction

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-21 08:57:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19999279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Quentyn is trying to be serious and somber while receiving his knighthood, but Gerris is proving, as always, to be a distraction from such a noble pursuit.





	Distraction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jougetsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jougetsu/gifts).



Quentyn received his knighthood on a bright and hot day, kneeling before Lord Yronwood, as his heart beet faster than he would have liked. It was a culmination of so may years of training and anticipation. There was a monumental weight about the moment that Quentyn could not have surmised in words but that he felt in every bone of his body. 

Not so long ago he, Cletus, Archibald and Gerris would sneak into each other’s rooms at night, climb under the blankets and whisper about all the adventures they would have together as knights, the enemies they would conquer and the pretty girls they would charm. 

Arch liked to talk about the enemies; Cletus and Gerris about the girls. 

As for Quentyn, he mostly enjoyed the company of his friends and listening to their fanciful imaginations. Not that glory and love did not interest him – although girls scared Quentyn more than enchanted him – but he felt somewhat unequal in both those things before the Yronwoods’ skill and Gerris’ endless charm. 

Cletus would tell him he was being too derogatory and hard on himself again. But Quentyn always felt like more was expected of him than would be expected of any other man. Naturally, being a Prince of Dorne. But Quentyn fancied himself to not be born for either warfare or lovemaking. In fact, at times, he was no certain what he was born for. Statesmanship? But that invariably involved _politics_ and Quentyn had no stomach for politics. Study? Perhaps. But how glum and unglamorous to become a maester, if not in name than in habit. Quentyn was not, in fact, deprived of the usual longings of adolescent boys and there was nothing a lifetime devoted to study could offer him on such account. 

But for all his doubts, Quentyn knew he was good at one thing: honor. Honestly, duty, a sense of justice, came easily to Quentyn, even when his friends teased him about it, called him boring and a killjoy. Cletus did so with the grave air of an older brother; Gerris with a flirtatious smirk and laugh that left Quentyn embarrassed and flustered, even though he knew Gerris never meant anything by it. But whenever Gerris was in a teasing mood, Quentyn’s heart and head seemed to suddenly become disinclined from anything but focusing on the exact pitch of Gerris’ laughter, the intricacies of his gestures, the depth of his eyes. The uncanniness of the feeling, and its implicit danger, always set Quentyn on edge. 

But for all of his friends’ teasing, Quentyn felt like he _belonged_ there on his knees, receiving and taking the oath of knighthood. If only knighthood was truly as its oaths suggested and promised, he would have likely succeeded marvelously at most of it. 

“In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent.”

Somewhere between the breathless beating of his heart and the nagging terror that there might be something required of him during the oath that he was not aware of or had forgotten, Quentyn still somehow managed to sneak a look at his friends, who were watching from the sidelines. His eyes stopped on Gerris, like they almost always did, if only for a second. Gerris’ hair was bleached in the height of summer and he was watching Quentyn with an expression of pride that Quentyn could have found patronizing if he so wished. But there was no reason to suspect any such feeling in Gerris, who was content enough with himself to genuine share in his friends’ successes. 

“In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women. In the name of the Crone I charge you to be wise. In the name of the Smith I charge you to be humble.”

Quentyn was still listening to the words, trying to allow them to sink in and take proper root in his soul, to embrace the enormity of the moment. But where that had been his main endeavor not so long ago, thoughts of Gerris had interrupted his worshipful reverie and now his mind was caught on the memory of Gerris receiving his own knighthood. On the way his eyes had sparkled with mischief and pride. The deep-gold streaks in his hair, after he had spent some months further north, away from the blistering Dornish sun. And after—after Gerris had clasped Quentyn’s hand and said, with a teasing smirk, “I hope you are proud of me, my Prince,” and Quentyn had flushed a brighter shade of red than he thought was possible, to Gerris’ apparent delight and amusement. 

It was not Gerris’ prince, as it were, that Quentyn desired to be. 

Before Quentyn could regain his concentration on his oaths, the ceremony was over and he was bidden to rise, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms. There was a part of Quentyn that felt ashamed of his distraction, and another part that merely wished to get out of the sun and away from so many prying eyes.

He walked over to his friends and embraced them. Gerris gave an exaggerated bow and Quentyn swiped at him. His fingers caught on thick blond curls and his heart gave a sudden jolt as he withdrew his hand as though he had been burned. Gerris looked up at him and for a moment, his smile faded. 

“What in bloody hell is wrong, Quentyn? You look miserable.” Gerris cocked his head to the side and made a show of examining Quentyn up and down. 

Beside them, Cletus nodded. “It must be the heat. Come inside, Quentyn.”

“But a moment,” Quentyn said and waved them away until only he and Gerris remained, looking at each other with some intensity. 

“We ought to not say anything incautious here. Lies and spies abound,“ Gerris said, trying to be witty in the sudden _intimacy_ of the moment. People were still around, though mostly heading away toward shade and respite. 

“I was not about to say anything untoward,” Quentyn said, not quite a lie and not quite the truth. He certainly _wanted_ to say something untoward and incautious and scandalous. He got that feeling more often around Gerris than he would like to admit, even to himself. “Merely to say, you ought to kiss me, as we are now brothers. For knighthood is a brotherhood of a kind.” Quentyn could feel himself blushing. This was, likely, the most forward thing he had ever said to anyone. 

Gerris’ eyes danced, and his smirk widened. “Only you would say such a thing, Quentyn.”

“Perhaps only I.” 

Gerris, still smiling, leaned forward and pressed his lips not to Quentyn’s cheek as he had expected, but to the corner of his mouth, sending a jolt through Quentyn’s body. So much for caution and decorum. Not that Quentyn minded very much. Gerris’ lips were chapped but soft, warm and surprisingly familiar against Quentyn’s, though they had never kissed this way before. 

When Gerris stepped back, he looked far more serious than when he began and, mostly to reassure him, Quentyn forced a smile through the butterflies suddenly filling his stomach. 

Something about that amused Gerris and his seriousness was gone as soon as it came. He laughed and swung an arm around Quentyn’s shoulders. “Come, _ser,_ let us retire before the sun makes crisps of us.” 

They would have more kisses like that to come. Some sweet and tender, in the relative coolness of the water gardens. Others brash and full of yearning, desperation or fear. Still others, meant to assuage grief, as Gerris kissed away Quentyn’s tears after Cletus and Will died. And one in the predawn dark of Meereen – the first time when even Gerris could not distract Quentyn from his fears, worries and duties. 

But they still had some time left before all of that for Quentyn to blush, Gerris to tease and Arch to rolls his eyes in knowing, fond frustration at their indecisiveness.


End file.
